Contents

General

DNA

B-form DNA

The roll and tilt angles vary by a few degrees depending on the basepairs. The dinucleotide AA (or TT) causes significant variations in the roll and tilt angles

RNA

The extra 2'-OH usually prevents formation of the B-form helix found in DNA.

A-form RNA

11 bases/turn

The basepair stacks are tilted and displaced with respect to the axis of the helix

Pseudoknots

RNA is normally assumed by folding algorithms to fold without pseudoknots. A non-pseudoknotted structure in parenthesis format would close all parenthesis in order, i.e. [()]. A pseudoknot has the form [(]). In a pseudoknot, the knotted region the "()" pairing cannot exceed 9 or 10 basepairs. This constraint is because of the helical structure of RNA which forms 10 or 11 basepairs per turn. With a full turn, the two strands of the pseudoknot would form a true knot which is physically and biologically unrealistic.